'Language should not be a road towards isolation'

Language is one of the most beautiful techniques that we as humans have developed which has allowed us to communicate among each other; we can share and understand our and others’ feelings, opinions, and ideas through this form of communication. A 2019 article states that there are roughly 6,500 languages in the world and while 2,000 of them have less than 1,000 speakers.

While languages were primarily designed to communicate, it is now the easiest path to barriers and isolation's faced by the same humans.

Edudwar

Did you ever encounter arguments over speaking a certain language?

In Bengaluru, while the locals argue that people living in Karnataka's capital city should try to speak the local language, the non-locals claim that they are being actively discriminated against for not knowing Kannada.

Neeta, a working professional shares an incident where she underwent this turmoil. One regular work day, Neeta was travelling on a bus where the bus conductor refused to take her ticket unless she spoke in Kannada. Several attempts later, along with the co-passenger’s help, while speaking in both Hindi and English, she tried to convince him that she doesn’t understand or speak the language. Still ignored, when it was time for her stop, the conductor returns to her, who now converses with her in fluent Hindi saying, “You are staying in our state, you are getting a job from our state, you are getting education from our state, so you must learn to speak Kannada.”

“You are blamed for the usage of your mother tongue. This shouldn’t be the case in any part of the world. Yes! One can learn new languages, but not at a compulsion.”

Reminiscing about her Bengaluru diaries, Pragya, a law student who is currently studying at Delhi University said, “I was studying in Bangalore's college for a very short period of time, like around four to six months. The people were nice over there, but due to the language, I did sometimes feel left out. I found it really hard to make friends because people would try to include me in their conversations, but after a point of time, they would switch from English to their native language. And I was just sitting there looking at people's faces, which was obviously not their fault, but I did feel a bit left out after that.”

Language should not be a road towards isolation.

A final year student hailing from North India shared her story with language barriers in her college days. “When I came to the college, I definitely felt like there was a division between people who knew the language or who were basically from South India and the people who speak Hindi. But eventually, the line faded and it vanished. That was one of the things that literally made us feel a bit left out, especially to Hindi speaking people,” she explained.

Instances like these, drive out the interest one has and take away the beauty of the language, don’t they?

"At times you just want to communicate in your own language and it is perfectly okay to do so."